Konsequences - Kobold style

[Michael Morris]

I've got a new 4e group and I ran them through a plot line that involved cleaning out a kobold lair. One of my own devising and, well, then did things a bit too well maybe. The destroyed every egg in the hatchery, and the dragonborn paladin* lit up about 22 kobold children and toddlers with her breath weapon and the party mopped up the 6 adolecents. All but 2 adults, by stats kobold skirmishers where killed as well as the warren's patron dragon, a young black one (this isn't the dungeon out of the DMG mind you).

I was rather shocked at the thoroughness of the job.

However I have two kobolds with a definite thirst for revenge. So I'm going to restat the two as full NPC rangers. I figure puting them at 2nd level, same as the party.

General tactics - track the party home. The group believes they've accomplished a total wipe so I don't expect them to take too much effort into avoiding being tracked. Further, they didn't move more than 4 hours walk from the lair before camping for end of session so the two can catch up.

Once they reach Osmon they can link up with several spies the dragon in their lair was coordinating with. A larger conspiracy is afoot, but these two are only going to report what occured and then get on with their grisly affair.

Since my players are adults the actions of the kobolds are a bit graphic, so I would advise the squeamish out there to turn back now.










Dragonborn are rare, but not unheard of, and the kobolds intend on using the human village's mistrust of the party's dragonborn to their advantage. The adventure starts with a baby impaled in the town square. The corpse will be burned in a manner similar to the kinds of burns the breath weapon will do. A note will be attached -- "42 eggs, 28 children - this is the first."

Now at this point the party will have already been bragging about their haul so the town elders will throw them out. The only town they know, Alantin, of is 38 miles away beyond the kobold lair they attacked.

Another problem - and the party knows about this - is the parent of the dragon they killed is expected to show up in another 4 days. When she does she will assume the city of Alantin is responsible since as a younger dragon she's had run ins with them before. So if the party heads south for the only place they know of they'll find it in ruins.

This leaves them in the wilderness hundreds of miles from the nearest known safe harbor - with two very, very angry kobolds shadowing them.

Depending on what the party does the kobolds may try any one of the following tactics.

1) The party has no one proficient with movement in the wildreness. If they get themselves lost one of the kobolds could move ahead of the party and give them a false trail to 'follow out' but instead lead them in a pointless loop giving the other kobold time to build a deadfall trap.

2) Unless the party force marches they'll encounter at least one daily sniping trap. These won't be for killing but rather to hamper, harrass and destroy supplies.

3) The kobolds might risk an incursion into the camp to steal or destroy supplies.

4) If the weather turns favorable they may start a forest fire

What the kobolds will not do:

1) Attack directly. They've already seen their whole warren destroyed by the party. They want revenge, not martyrdom. The one exception is if the party is badly mauled in a chance encounter with something - if the kobolds think the party is weakened enough to strike they will.

Any other ideas?

*Alignments work differently in Dusk - none of the 5 alignments gives a rat's ass about the good or evil of an action so long as the precepts of the alignment are upheld. A paladin is charged with upholding the ethos of one alignment and the player is within the ethos of Shunria, or red.

 

[LostSoul]

They need an ability like this:

Vengeful Strike (immediate reaction, when an allied kobold is reduced to 0 hit points)
The kobold screams, "Not again!" and makes a basic melee attack against an adjacent target.

Then pair them up with a bunch of minions.


Some other ideas:

Have them gather kobolds along the way, until they have a sizeable warparty. The PCs need some way to interact with this; I don't know what that might be.

Have them lead the dragon to the PCs.

Run a skill challenge. Each failure saps the PCs of a healing surge as they are put through the wringer by the kobolds. At the end of it, they face down the kobolds.

 

[BeauNiddle]

Ummmm, just a quick side question.

You sent your players on a mission to clear out a kobold lair which they did as per your instructions. Now you want to destroy all resources and associations they have and basically make their lives miserable for the next few game days.

Are the players okay with that sort of campaign? Are you okay with the players spending the rest of the campaign deeply mistrustful of all future missions?

I just feel I should ask

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Ummmm, just a quick side question.

You sent your players on a mission to clear out a kobold lair which they did as per your instructions. Now you want to destroy all resources and associations they have and basically make their lives miserable for the next few game days.

Are the players okay with that sort of campaign? Are you okay with the players spending the rest of the campaign deeply mistrustful of all future missions?

I just feel I should ask

Pah, as long as its fun and challenging, everything is fine. I'd expect Micheal might know his players well enough to judge this, but maybe I am wrong?

 

[Ginnel]

Ummmm, just a quick side question.

You sent your players on a mission to clear out a kobold lair which they did as per your instructions. Now you want to destroy all resources and associations they have and basically make their lives miserable for the next few game days.

Are the players okay with that sort of campaign? Are you okay with the players spending the rest of the campaign deeply mistrustful of all future missions?

I just feel I should ask

Actions give consequences.

Campaigns aren't to be won or lost they are there to participate in, and its not making the players lives miserable its making the characters lives miserable.

Players don't have a choice in missions, their characters do, if next time the characters don't wipe out the nursery is that good or bad? only time will tell. The DM didn't send them out on a mission an NPC did, if the characters don't trust that NPC fine.

If the players don't want to deal with consequences or want to have punishments ever they should state that before the campaign, if the DM is running something like that they should also state this at the start of the campaign, this seems like a solution to most perceived problems to me, clear communication of expectations.

Back on topic, get the Kobolds to scout ahead of the party, put dead animals in water supplies, plant an unsual smelling herb on the parties equipment which attracts a certain kind of animal but is not overly whiffy to the party members.

Its a nice setup, although be prepared for the players getting lucky and butchering the two hate filled kobolds before they get the chance to give any payback.

 

[BeauNiddle]

I didn't mean any disrespect. It's why I asked it as a side question.

I have no problems with actions having consequences but to me Kobolds are very much the vermin of any D&D setting - they exist to die. Wiping out whole towns and staking babies in the town square is ... an impressive response to what happened.

Were the players all "I love the smell of napalm in the morning, burn the babies" or where they "Hey I've not tried out my new power in the edition and look these kobolds are in a 3*3 burst".

Consequences should be sized relative to the transgression.

[Did the townsfolk celebrate the victory or react in horror at the stories of violence. Do the players know yet that you think they were over the top?]


As to the main question asked I'd view kobolds as cowards. Setting traps on the main road rather than direct ambushes might be more their sort of thing. Can be twisted if other travellers start falling foul of them. Kobolds will also realise they are no match for the adventurers and will seek allies. The obvious one is the Dragon which is due to return (I see some clerics / paladins of Tiamat in the parties future) but what other creatures are in the area.

The ideas of sending wild animals at the party and / or forest fires are good ones.

 

[Michael Morris]

Well the pov of the town sheriff is "The next time you destroy a kobold lair you bloody fools make sure to kill **all** the kobolds."

I don't run a railroad game - I usually wing it and follow the players around. However NPC's react to what they do. The two surviving kobolds are going to be a pair of thorns in the party's side until the party can countertrack them down and kill them. I've been known to make it very, very difficult to kill such recurring villains. When they do they've actually lept up and danced about it.

 

[Kraydak]

Well the pov of the town sheriff is "The next time you destroy a kobold lair you bloody fools make sure to kill **all** the kobolds."

I don't run a railroad game - I usually wing it and follow the players around. However NPC's react to what they do. The two surviving kobolds are going to be a pair of thorns in the party's side until the party can countertrack them down and kill them. I've been known to make it very, very difficult to kill such recurring villains. When they do they've actually lept up and danced about it.

(1) Boosting the surviving kobolds' power "just because" really sits wrong with me. If two kobold skirmishers want to try and mess with a decent sized settlement, that is fine. They won't get far. If you don't give the kobold's vastly level inappropriate abilities they will get tracked down and summarily executed. *Even* if they somehow manage to survive for a few days and the party starts a trek, tracking groups through the wilderness over long distances without getting noticed is *hard*. Forget about setting traps.

(2) Congratulations on reinforcing the lesson of "kill everyone", including the "good" humans. As a member of the party, if the town was going to (a) be incompetent enough and (b) dickish enough to toss me out I might well opt to sack the place myself. If they can't protect themselves from a few kobolds, they won't be able to hold off the party (see point 1), after all; and being that weak, it isn't like the town will be there next year, anyways. Might as well salvage some supplies for the trek from the doomed settlement, and deny the enemy the opportunity to do the same. Note that once you see the other town destroyed, this argument becomes even stronger. Without any other settlements anywhere nearby, that town is dead.

 

[Korror]

One thing that you want to be careful of is making the kobolds metagame. As a DM it can be easy to make all NPC plans work out perfectly because of course you know all the factors and every detail of the world. If they want to foul the water supply, it automatically works. If they want to lay traps ahead, it automatically works. There's no plans that they can come up with that the DM will reject. The PCs don't have a direct connection to your imaginion and hence are at a disadvantage in this kind of contest. For example, why do the Kobolds automatically know that this tactic they're using will get the villigers to throw the PCs out rather than hiring the PCs again to protect them against the renewed Kobold? They seem like they're a mechanism to "punish" the PCs for no good reason.

Secondly, I'm wondering why you're "shocked" over the behavior of your PCs in killing the women and children. Putting aside whether or not this was the right course of action, it only occured because you put those kobold women and children there. If you didn't want the PCs to kill them, why include them at all? And why make such a big issue out of it, it's not like the kobolds make a distiction between non-combatents as the baby incidient shows. They'd be upset that the PCs killed off their tribe but not any more or less upset that they killed the hatchlings.

I feel your pain of having to deal with players though, sometimes they can be quite annoying and there's often a great urge to smack them down if only to see them not get their own way for once.

 

[DogBackward]

Secondly, I'm wondering why you're "shocked" over the behavior of your PCs in killing the women and children. Putting aside whether or not this was the right course of action, it only occured because you put those kobold women and children there. If you didn't want the PCs to kill them, why include them at all?

It's called realism (I assume). Where else would the women and children be, if not at the lair? Just because something's there doesn't mean it's automatically meant to be killed, even if it is small and scaly. And it's entirely possible that they were there specifically to see if the PC's would kill them or not.

And why make such a big issue out of it, it's not like the kobolds make a distiction between non-combatents as the baby incidient shows. They'd be upset that the PCs killed off their tribe but not any more or less upset that they killed the hatchlings.

Uh, what? Kobolds are "people", too. The only reason they killed the infant was in direct response to the wanton murder of their own young. And even if they did routinely kill human babies on their own, just because the kobolds don't care about human babies doesn't mean they don't care about their own. Sure, it's a racist view for them to have, but they're bloody kobolds!

Think of it in reverse. Obviously, the PC's (and probably NPC's) don't care about the kobold young, or they wouldn't have killed them. Does that mean that they won't care if someone kills their children? At least not any more than if they killed trained soldiers, by your own reasoning...